Degree projects

COSSE pursues long-term industrial relations, and interacts with companies such as ABB Corporate research (KTH), Shell (TU Delft), and Siemens (FAU Erlangen), and simulation software developers such as COMSOL Inc. The collaborations lead to challenging thesis projects, internships, and potential future careers.

The degree project (Master's thesis) may be performed in a research group at the institute or as a project in industry or consulting company. It comprises 30 ECTS credits, and is carried out in the second half of the second year of the programme. Students are supervised and examined by faculty from both the home and the host university. Topics of degree projects are suggested at the joint workshop or by teachers at the home or host university. The result of the project is presented as a written report and in an oral seminar.

Examples of recent master's theses projects

Numerical Modeling of Rotary Kilns

by Miguel Romero (TU Delft, 2012)

A rotary kiln

A numerical combustion model for the heat and gas flow in the rotating oven was build and validated using temperate measurements in the oven's isolating surface. This model revealed that under in the standard production configuration of the oven, the zone in the kiln where rings are typically formed coincides with areas maximal radiative heat transfer. This key insight allowed us to alter the operating conditions and to avoid ring formation. The new configuration was implemented at the plant in Rotterdam at the end of August 2011 and our kiln has not been affected by ring formation ever since. This new configuration also proved beneficial for the overall quality of the produced cement and provides insight in the production of toxic NOX gasses. Now, we aim at further optimizing the production process by gaining a better understanding of the phase changes and chemical reactions that the raw material undergoes.

A patient-specific poroelastic model of a brain with a subdural hematoma

by Carolyn Langen (KTH, 2012)

Carolyn Langen presents her master's thesis project at KTH.

A patient-specific poroelastic model of the brain was constructed in COMSOL Multiphysics and evaluated for its usability in a clinical setting. Image processing of magnetic resonance (MR) images of a standard (uninjured) brain and a computed tomography (CT) scan of a patient with a subdural hematoma was used to make an estimation of the shape patient’s pre-injury brain and obtain a deformation map describing the displacement due to the hematoma.